Child safety in Serbia: the transformative power of partnerships
During the annual National Police Day celebrations in Belgrade this May, something was different. While in the past only a handful of school children would attend the event, this year, many of them were part of the crowd. Speaking with a representative of the OSCE Mission to Serbia, Jela Stevanović, the principal of the Pavle Popović primary school in Vranić, a suburb of Belgrade, said she had a good hunch as to why this was so. Since the start of the last school year, a new child safety programme, organized by the Interior Ministry and supported by the Mission, has been running at her and all other schools in Serbia. The popularity of the programme, which includes workshops led by retired police officers, has surpassed all expectations.
Child safety – a matter of empowerment
Children today face many safety hazards. Traffic, fires and natural disasters, have always been a risk. Schoolyard bullying is a problem that can cause physical and emotional injury. The Internet and social media are uniquely modern phenomena and pose new challenges. As children grow older, their safety increasingly depends on the choices they make. The dangers of alcohol and drug abuse, and also of serious phenomena such as human trafficking, are threats they need to be informed about early, so that they are empowered to contribute to their own security.
Unfortunately, in Serbia, children and their families are often less aware about hazards and how to avoid them than they should be. Nor do they have a clear idea of how they could go about dealing with them.
Part of the problem is that many people in Serbia do not have much trust in public institutions. The Belgrade Centre for Security Policy published a study in 2017 showing that only 56 per cent of Serbian citizens trust the police, while 41 per cent do not – a level of trust that, while improving, is still far below the global average. One of the reasons for such mistrust is also the lack of regular interaction and communication between citizens and the police. Citizens are most often in contact with the police in relation to the issuance of personal documents, and with traffic police – interactions that rarely offer the opportunity to build relationships, or to increase citizens’ feelings of security.
We’re not used to showering praise on people, but this has been a very positive experience. These are people who aren’t teachers by trade, yet they are very prepared and effective in getting the kids interested. Not once have they cancelled or moved a lecture. We’ve never had this kind of co-operation with the police or the Interior Ministry before.
Last year, the Interior Ministry decided that, in the interest of Serbia’s children, things had to change. It launched a training programme intended to instil in children the knowledge, skills, and attitudes they need to develop a culture of safety. The programme has two connected objectives – provide children and parents with the information they need and increase their trust in institutions like the police.
Accessible information
Together with the OSCE Mission to Serbia, the Ministry produced a handbook entitled Basics of Child Safety. Slim, colourful and full of illustrations, it contains information on child safety risks, explanations of phenomena such as bullying, trafficking in human beings, and natural disasters, and tips on how to react in different emergency situations. There is a list of services provided by police and firefighters and emergency numbers to call.
The OSCE Mission supported the booklet’s translation into eight minority languages – Albanian, Bosnian, Bulgarian, Croatian, Hungarian, Romanian, Ruthenian and Slovak – to ensure that children in all of Serbia’s ethnic communities can profit from the information. To date, 138,000 copies have been printed and distributed to students across the country, and the Mission is looking at ways to support the distribution of the handbook online, through social media or an app.
Ambassador Andrea Orizio (r) and Nebojša Stefanović, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Interior, at the launch of The Basics of Child Safety handbook, Belgrade, 12 February 2018.Partnerships – within schools, with parents, municipal officials, community service providers and police – are the key to ensuring child safety.
Of course, the handbook is just a first step. To be effective, information needs to be coupled with good communication between children, parents and institutions: “Partnerships – within schools, with parents, municipal officials, community service providers and police – are the key to ensuring child safety,” said the Head of the OSCE Mission to Serbia, Andrea Orizio, at the ceremony to launch the book in the Pavle Popovic school in February. Interior Minister Nebojša Stefanović and Assistant Minister of Education Vesna Nedeljković joined Orizio in presiding at the event. They distributed copies of the booklet to pupils and then, to underscore the importance of building relationships, they sat down with a class of sixth graders to hear a presentation by a retired police officer about drug and alcohol abuse.
Building trust
Bridging the gap between police and children is the goal of the second major component of the Child Safety Programme being piloted at the school. Once a month, for eight months, a representative of the Interior Ministry or a retired police officer comes to speak to fourth and sixth grade pupils. “The lectures are well designed and remain on the mind of our students,” says Stevanović.
One of the sessions focuses on the role of police in serving citizens; others are about traffic safety, prevention of violence, the dangers of drugs and alcohol, safe use of the Internet, protection against human trafficking, fire protection, and disaster preparedness.
Just as important as the content of the lectures is the presence of the instructors themselves. Stevanović admits to being astonished at the quality of their commitment: “We’re not used to showering praise on people, but this has been a very positive experience. These are people who aren’t teachers by trade, yet they are very prepared and effective in getting the kids interested. Not once have they cancelled or moved a lecture. We’ve never had this kind of co-operation with the police or the Interior Ministry before.”
Children asking for more
The lecturers have left just as good an impression on the pupils. “We now have other students saying, ‘Why don’t we get lessons? We’re interested, too!’,” says Stevanović.
The goal is to have all children echo the sentiment of one of the pupils who explained why she attended the celebration on National Police Day: “The police are one of us!”
Word about the lectures has spread from the children to their parents. Together with the teachers at the Pavle Popović school, they are exploring ways to include more, or even all of the children at the school. Furthermore, there is talk of other ways to expand the child safety programme. Schools or municipalities could employ a resident police officer, who could be a consistent resource on child safety and help to further build trust between the community and the police.
The goal is to have all children echo the sentiment of one of the pupils who explained why she attended the celebration on National Police Day: “The police are one of us!”